principles as might accommodate them for those works to which they were appointed And he Governs all things by such Laws as are suited to those several natures which he had at first implanted in them The most universal principle belonging to all kinds of things is self-preservation which in Man being a rational Agent is somewhat further advanced to strong propensions and desires of the Soul after a state of happiness which hath the predominancy over all other inclinations as being the supreme and ultimate end to which all particular designs and actions must be subservient 2. By Moral Duties I mean such Habits or Actions as are the most proper means for the attaining of this end About these we have a liberty of Acting to which we are to be induced in a moral way by such kind of Arguments and Motives as are in themselves sufficient to convince the Reason So that self-love and the proposing of happiness as our chief end though it be the Foundation of Duty that basis or substratum upon which the Law is founded yet it is not properly a moral duty because every Man must do it necessarily nor can he do otherwise Now to suppose that the Holy and Wise God should impose any thing as a duty upon his Creatures which is inconsistent with those principles that he himself hath implanted in their natures in their first Creation is an apprehension as absurd in it self as it is unworthy of God This natural Principle of endeavouring after happiness is the Foundation of all Moral Duties For the highest moral inducement or motive to perswâ—de men to any thing is to represent such a thing as necessary to their happiness so that our Obligation to Duty is from the Law of God but the great motive to it is Love to our selves and a natural desire of happiness 2. From the chief scope of all those promises and threats so frequent in Scripture which are certainly intended for this very purpose to excite and quicken us in our Obedience Now it cannot be denyed but that 't is our duty to make that the aim and end of our actions which the Scripture it self proposes to be so namely to avoid the evil and obtain the good therein mentioned Deut. 30.19 20. After that large Catalogue of Mercies and Judgments before recited Moses puts them in mind that he had set before them that day life and death blessing and cursing therefore chuse life that thou and thy seed mayest live c. Upon this account it is that several precepts in Scripture are press'd upon us with so many affectionate insinuations taken from the consideration of our own good Deut. 5.29 Oh that there were such an heart in them that they would fear me and keep my Commandments always that it might be well with them and their Children after them And Chap. 6. v. 24. The Lord Commanded us to do all these things for our good always that he might preserve us alive c. Now I say it is not only lawful but 't is our duty to serve God upon his own motives and encouragements and to make that a principal reason and end of our obedience which he himself proposes to us under those Considerations 3. From the nature of that Principle which hath the chief influence upon the very life and actions of every Religious Man and that is Faith The just shall live by Faith As Reason is the Foundation of all humane actions so is Faith of Religious dutys And every one under the notion of just or Religious is acted by this principle of Faith as brutes are by Sense and Men by Reason Now Faith v. 1. Is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen Where among the things hoped for and not seen are clearly meant the happiness and salvation which we expect hereafter the rewards of a better life which Faith doth as realy discern in the promises as if they were actually present to the Sense Hence it is that Salvation is said to be the end of our Faith receiving the end of your Faith even the Salvation of your Souls 1 Pet. 1.9 So then if all Religious actions be derived from Faith as the main root and principle of them and if Faith doth chiefly refer to the rewards hoped for and not seen then it must needs follow that it is as necessary for a believer to have a principal aime at the rewards as it is for him to live by Faith And that he may as well pretend to be above the life of Faith as to be above the help of those encouragements of the rewards and promises proposed in Scripture and so far as Faith hath an influence upon our Religious actions so far must we respect the recompence of reward 4. From the nature of our Love which is another Principle whereby the Soul is acted and carried on in all its attempts and prosecutions Now the proper object of Love is not so much that which is absolutely good in it self as that which is relatively so to us And this being rightly understood will give very much light unto the chief difficulties about the Point in hand 'T is true indeed there are in the Deity attributes of such a superlative goodness that of themselves they do deserve infinitely more than the best of our affections but yet they prove effectual to the winning over of our love and desires so far only as they are apprehended to be convenient for us And therefore the exactest Schoolman who spends most of his time and endeavours in the contemplation of those transcendent excellencies which are to be found in the Deity after all his Studies may find his heart as cold and stupid as the most ignorant man These things may raise his wonder but not his affections or in the phrase of a good Divine they may dazle his understanding into a more distempered ignorance but will never be able to ravish his Soul with those angelical flames of love which sanctified men do feel on Earth and the glorified Saints do fully enjoy in Heaven Hence is it that though the Devil doth understand those absolute perfections in the divine nature better than any man in the World as that God is most wise most holy most glorious yet he doth not love him because he himself cannot receive any benefit by him And upon the same ground is it that though a man should be sufficiently perswaded that his neighbour hath more grace than himself and so is absolutely more lovely yet he is not bound to love his neighbour better than himself because it is not absolute but relative good that is the surest ground of love And therefore the beloved Disciple who had most skill in the nature of this grace tells us that we loved God because he loved us first 1 Joh. 4.19 Implying some kind of necessity of apprehending God under the notion of a Friend or a Saviour before we shall love him He that comes to God
'T was for this reason that our Saviour sent out his Disciples two by two that so they might more successfully advantage one another in the work of their ministry You know the story of King Ioash how he prospered in all his affairs during the life of his good friend Iehoiada but after his death he revolted to Idolatry and with an ungrateful cruelty slew the Son of Iehoiada for reproving his apostacy after which nothing prospered with him but having been first spoiled by the Syrians he was slain by his own servants 1 Chron. 24. From all which the truth of the Proposition may sufficiently appear that the sociable life of a friend is in many respects much more advantageous than to live alone 1. For the Application of this it may in the first place serve to convince such as pretend to this relation of the obligation they are under to observe those mutual offices of friendship towards one another of counselling them in their difficulties bearing a share with them in their several conditions rejoycing with them in their joys and grieving with them in their griefs assisting them in their labours Without which all the professions of love and service are but words of course that vanish into air and signifie nothing Nay those near Relations of Parent and Child and Brother and which is nearer for which a man is to forsake all other that conjugal relation of Husband and Wife are only valuable upon this account as they are friends and without this they are but empty names Deut. 13.6 If thy Brother the Son of thy Mother or the Son of thy Daughter or the wife of thy bosom or thy friend that is as thy own soul. This last is the highest step in the gradation All the other relations continue though mixed with unkindness but this last implies dearness in the very essence of it and is altogether inseparable from it a man may be a Father Son Husband and without loving but 't is not possible for him to be a friend without love and friendship 2. And that we may be thus mutually helpful to such as we profess friendship to we should labour for those due qualifications requisite to such a condition Of these I shall reckon four 1. There must be true love which is styled the bond of perfection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Colos. 3.14 The only bond that can make a perfect union As two pieces of Iron will never be perfectly hammered together unless they are both red hot so neither will two minds be joyned together in such an helpful union unless they are both warmed with the same heats of affection That kind of amity which is founded wholly upon private ends negotiatio est non amicitia it is trafick but not friendship 2. A wise freedom not to conceal any thing that may be beneficial though it may prove distasteful An profecturus sim nescio malum successum mihi quà m fidem deesse When we are uncertain of the issue of our admonitions yet this we may be sure of that 't is better to be without success on his part than fidelity on our own 3. Patience Make no friendship with an angry man and with a furious man thou shalt not go Prov. 22.24 Short spirited men are neither good Counsellors nor Comforters God is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to suffer and bear long with the manners of his people in the wilderness Acts 13.18 And the Apostle injoyns men to possess their souls in patience Implying that he that is out of patience is out of the possession of his own soul and therefore will not be fit to take care of anothers 4. Constancy to hold out in all states and conditions without deserting him in trouble To forsake a friend in his distress argues a man to have much baseness and meaness of spirit and to be without all true generosity The carriage of the Witch of Endor towards Saul will cast shame upon such unworthy persons Though she was sure that he was the next day to lose his kingdom and be slain with his Sons and so could neither hope for good nor fear any hurt from him yet when she saw him exceedingly dejected lying upon the ground and refusing to eat the remembrance of what he had been impresses upon her such a reverence that instead of meditating revenge for the law he had enacted against persons of her Trade she courts him with all the humble and respective language that may be endeavours to cheer him up bespeaks him to eat kills for him her fatted calf bestirs her self to prepare unleavened bread and uses him with as much respect as if he had been still to continue in his most flourishing estate The example of this Witch may be a just condemnation and reproach to the perfidiousness of an unconstant friend But above all other kinds of friendship this of the Conjugal Relation doth most firmly oblige to these mutual duties And because the occasion of this present Meeting is to commemorate a solemnity of this nature which was celebrated in this Church this day was 16 years the happiness of which hath since that time been still continued with all the blessings of domestical love and peace besides the comforts of a hopeful posterity to succeed therefore in order to the present occasion the better to excite your gratitude for the mercies you commemorate I would offer it to your consideration to look abroad into the World and take a view of the state of many other great Families how uncomfortably they live by reason of domestical dissentions which sometimes rise to that height as to make a separation of those whom God hath joyned to their mutual dishonour and discomfort And perhaps either no posterity to continue the name or such a vicious and debauched one as will be a scandal to it They that understand the state of things abroad will find no great scarcity of examples to this purpose And therefore how great reason have others to be thankful for their exemption in these respects Gods peculiar blessing of any in a relation is a farther obligation upon them to serve him in the duties of that relation which are in this case either special to Husband and Wife or joint and common to both 1. Husbands should love their Wives as Christ loves his Church Ephes. 5.25 Or as they love their own selves v. 33. 2. Be kind to them v. 29. Not harsh and bitter against them Colos. 3.19 Lest she cover the Altar of the Lord with her tears so that he will not regard thy offering any more nor receive it with good will at thy hand Malachi 2.13 14. 3. Give honour to them as the weaker vessels as being heirs with you of the grace of life 1 Pet. 3.7 Being tender of displeasing or disatisfying them by any imprudent action or seeming neglect Let her be unto thee as the loving Hinde or the tender Roe and be thou always satisfied with her love The Wife must
must look upon him as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Rewarder v. 6. Now I say if God's love to us must be the chief reason of our love to him then is it necessary for us in our best services to have a principal respect unto the reward and those things which to us may be most advantageous To which I shall add That the phrase of loving God with all our hearts with all our souls and with all our might so frequent in Scripture doth signifie no more than loving him as our chief end We are allowed to love other things in such a measure and proportion as they are conducible to our real happiness and as they are subordinate ends But our chief and ultimate end is said to have all because it comprehends under it all the intermediate 5. Unto these I might add a fifth Reason from those eminent examples in Scripture to this purpose That of Adam who whilst he was in the perfect state of innocence and consequently could not have any such reluctancy or weakness in his nature which might make a good duty seem difficult yet God saw it necessary for him that his obedience should be fenced about with promises and threatnings Do this and live The day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death And therefore certainly it is not possible for us who have corrupted natures to attain unto any perfection above this Nay of Christ himself it is recorded in the next Chapter to this vers 2. That he endured the Cross and despised the shame for the joy that was set before him And so too in the fifth Chap. vers 7.8 He was afraid and learned obedience by the things which he suffered Now you know that our Saviour was perfect Man perfect in regard of all those things which are essentially and necessarily annexed to our natures and perfect too in respect of that utmost holiness of which in this life we are capable and therefore if he according to his humanity were thus quickned in his obedience by hopes of reward and fears of suffering certainly then 't is impossible for us whilst we are in this World to be ever above such helps I shall need to say no more for confirmation of the Point There are many Objections against it as being beside the common road and opinion some of the chief of these I shall endeavour briefly to examine and answer and then proceed to application The first Objection may be from that common notion of mercenary love and servile fear which are usually thus described when we do good out of love to the reward that belongs to it and avoid evil out of fear of those judgments that may follow upon it And these are frequently condemned as sinful affections belonging to the Devil and wicked men and no way agreeing to one that has the nature of a Child To which purpose are those common sayings Oderunt peccare mali formidine poenae And that of St. Augustin Qui Gehennas metuit non peccare metuit sed ardere ille autem peccare metuit qui peccatum ipsum sicut gehennas odit He that is restrained from sinning by the fear of Hell is not so much afraid to sin as to be damned he only doth truly fear sin who hates it as he does Hell with divers the like speeches For Answer to this 1. As to the authority of such usual opinions or sayings 't is considerable that the Assertion here maintained being acknowledged to be a Paradox it cannot therefore in reason be expected that bare humane Testimony should be looked upon as of any special force against it And to speak as the truth is 't is too common a fault amongst good Divines to take up general notions upon trust without applying them to the rule by a particular examination 2. As to the reason of this Objection I humbly conceive with submission that the proper nature of servile fear is to drive us from God in rebellion and disloyalty rather than to him in obedience and submission And therefore the metaphor is taken from a slave in whom the fear of his master makes him run away from him and desire that he may not return to him again as it was with the Amalekites servant 1 Sam. 30.15 When men are afraid of God and fly from him as an enemy whose ruine they wish according to that common saying Quem quisque metuit periisse expetit So that a man cannot do good out of a servile fear this doth not put him upon the performance of his duty but of his lusts such was that fear in Adam which made him fly from and endeavour to hide himself and his faults from God such was that in Saul and Iudas which made one of them run upon his sword and the other to strangle himself The disposition of a child is fear mixed with love The fear of the rod may bring a child to his father in filial obedience tho it drive the servant from his master in a slavish disloyalty And so likewise for mercenary love which is when reward can hire us to any thing without any consideration of the good or evil of it as in those two examples of Saul and Iudas one of whom would disobey God to win the spoils of his enemies and the other betray his master for thirty pieces of silver Such was that also in Balaam of whom the Apostle saith that he loved the wages of unrighteousness because of his strong inclinations to curse Israel that he might obtain Balaac's reward 'T is true indeed if there be in a man's heart any secret desire of liberty to sin and a grief because there is punishment annexed to it such a disposition of the soul is unquestionably evil and of such alone it may be truly said that he does not fear to sin but to be punished as St. Austin speaks And yet it does not follow but that sin ought to be avoided for the punishment denounced against it And he who out of consideration of punishment is afraid to offend God supposing that he doth not in his heart actually desire any thing against the Law and Justice of God such an one doth as he ought for punishments are truly to be feared and they are therefore proposed in Scripture to deterr us from sinning 2. Another Objection is this If in our obedience we may chiefly aim at our own private benefit then it seems that we may love our selves better than God nay then we set up our selves in his room For that which we propose as our chief end that we make our God And this says one is the highest impiety imaginable why a man had better pull the Sun out of Heaven than pull God thence which he doth whilst he makes a Deity of himself 'T is not better than the Indians Idolatry who adore the Devil nor less absurd than the Aegyptians Devotion who worship the Onyons and Leeks God is to be loved for
favour to men of skill but time and chance happens to them all that is the great abilities of these persons cannot secure them by any such special privilege but that they may be involved in the same necessities and casualties which befall the common herd of mankind 2. As for Sin Such persons are more exposed to it by reason of those temptations to which they are obnoxious knowledge in it self being apt to puff up And yet they cannot find so much pleasure in it as others by reason of those inward regrets and smitings of conscience which will imbitter it to them Nor can they sin at so cheap a rate by reason of those many stripes denounced against the knowing Servant The Chaldee Paraphrase in translating of the Text renders the words thus That man who increaseth in knowledge and not in grace and repentance doth treasure up for himself the anger and indignation of the Lord. So that in all these respects there must needs be much vexation in the possession of wisdom and knowledge 3. And yet notwithstanding all this men cannot chuse but be much troubled at the loss of it Which may be three manner of ways 1. by the unfaithfulness of memory which is like a leaking vessel and doth quicky let slip the things committed to its custody Now it must needs be a great vexation to a man to take much pains in gathering in and treasuring up and afterwards to let all drop out again through the chinks of a leaking memory his labour being to as little purpose as if he had laved water into a sive 2. Through the defects of old age when the sun and the moon and the stars shall be darkned chap. 12. The Understanding and the other inferior Faculties being deprived of their wonted light and reason Childhood returning again to the mind as well as to the feeble members 'T is related of a great Scholar some ages since of this Place by name Swisset who for his manner of Writing by demonstrations was afterwards called the Calculator that being grown old he often wept because he was not able to understand the Books which he had written in his younger days 3. By Death which shall put a period to our Lives and our Learning at once Now for men to think that though they run in never so hot a pursuit after knowledge yet they must shortly be laid in the dust from whence all their learning cannot either preserve or deliver them to consider that in this the wise hath not a greater privilege than the fool but the same forgetfulness shall cover both their memories For after death there is no remembrance of the wiseman more than of the fool seeing that which now is in the days to come shall be forgotten And lastly to consider that after death the soul of the most ignorant peasant shall presently know more than the profoundest Philosophers or the most subtile Schoolman could ever attain unto I say to consider all this is of it self apt to make a man weary of life and learning whereby he is exposed to so much vexation I have been so long in the explication and proof of this that it is so that I shall be but brief in the reasons why it is so And I shall mention only those two which are put together in the fifth ver of this chapter 1. The impotency of wisdom and knowledge that which is crooked cannot be made strait 2. The imperfection of it that which is wanting cannot be numbred The vexation of every thing is proportionable to the disappointment of it which in these things is so much the greater by how much the hopes and likelyhoods of contentment here are more promising and yet the trial and issue more remote and contrary Now that these things are so far from affording real happiness must needs be evident upon these two grounds 1. From their utter impotence and disability for that work wherein our happiness doth properly consist the rectifying of our crooked natures restoring of us to an uprightness and conformity unto that image after which we were created Now who knows not that it is above the power of any natural wisdom or knowledge fully to discover to us the deformity of our natural states much less then can they direct how to recover us out of it The Devil is perhaps a greater scholar than any man in the world and yet all his learning cannot find out a way how to reinstate himself in his former privileges of a glorified Angel 2. From the deficiency and imperfection of these things in reference to their own proper faculty the Understanding that which is wanting cannot be numbred That is there are innumerable particulars in nature which the most inquisitive judgment shall never reach unto No man shall ever find out the works of God from the beginning to the end And this is one of the most proper effects of learning that it discovers to a man his own ignorance Now as there is on the one hand much pleasure in finding out what a man knew not so must there be a proportionable grief in the consideration of those innumerable other things which we cannot attain unto It was the ambition of our first Parents to aspire unto a perfect knowledge to be like Gods knowing good and evil and therefore 't is but just that their posterity should be thus afflicted by the vexation of their imperfect knowledge It must needs be a greater trouble to an inquisitive man to consider that notwithstanding all his pains and care yet he must grow old in ignorance and in most things shall know as little as those that are idle and foolish the secrets of wisdom being double to that which is as Zophar tells us in Iob 11.6 Now this great imperfection of our knowledge will more distinctly appear if we consider it under those several heads to which it is reducible namely the knowledge of Words Things Times Persons and Actions 1. That learning which consists only in the form and paedagogy of Arts or the Critical notions upon words and phrases hath in it this intrinsical imperfection that 't is only so far to be esteemed as it conduceth to the knowledge of things being in it self but a kind of pedantry apt to infect a man with such odd humours of pride and affectation and curiosity as will render him unfit for any great employment Words being but the images of matter and to be wholly given up to the study of these what is it but Pygmalions phrenzy to fall in love with a picture or image as for Oratory which is the best skill about words that hath by some Wisemen been esteemed but a voluptuary art like to cookery which spoils wholsome meats and helps unwholesome by the variety of sauces serving more to the pleasure of taste than the health of the body 2. As for real knowledge that is likewise exceeding imperfect whethe we look to the history of nature delivered down to us